Hi!

I have wanted to know how to make a nice, smooth, thick curve in PS for a long time. I thought it would just be a matter of creating a path with the pen tool and then stroking it, but my results come out with jagged/bumpy edges. I checked the brush settings to make sure there was nothing in there to give it a bumpy edge, but I don't see what could be causing the issue.

Does anyone know a tutorial that teaches how to do these nice curves? Please see the attached photos for a better idea of what I am after. I also attached the photos of what is happening when I stroke a path.

Thanks for any pointers or links to tutorials you can give.



Here are some example of what I am looking to achieve:






Here is my try at it... somewhat unsuccessful!

Lombi,

I actually did just click drag for the curve points and did not use ALT. I'm very new to the pen tool, so this could be a matter of me being a newbie. I can't seem to get the control I want at this point. Maybe I should be doing a shape instead? I have never done this kind of thing before.

Thanks for the help!

If "large-scale" smoothness is what you're after, making sure that you always have "handles" coming out of your path points is the answer. Always click and drag when you place a point. Then go back and adjust the handles.

But you also showed a close-up of your line and it shows small-scale bumpiness. If you want those bumps to go away, go into the Brush palette and adjust the Spacing of the brush down to 1 - 10%, instead of the default 25%. That will make your line much smoother.

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Lombi :
No problemmo. *adds curve video tutorial into to-do list*

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Ah, that would be WONDERFUL!!!